Abstract

The production activities of the rubber industry in Nigeria generate a large quantity of rubber (wastewaters) effluent most of which are often discharged untreated into nearby surroundings. A study carried out in 1994-1997 on the numbers and types of rubber processing factories and effluent generated and discharged in Nigeria and their modes of disposal/ control revealed that 41 rubber processing factories were located in 10 states of the country of which only 27 were still functional. Of these functional factories, 18.5% produced ribbed smoked sheets (RSS), 77.8% technically specified rubber (TSR) and 3.7% latex concentrate. Seventy-four percent (74%) had serious pollution problems while 18.5% had mild pollution problems. Fifty-five percent (55%) had received complaints from the residents living around the factories, of odour and pollution of their source of domestic water. Only 7.4% had good effluent treatment facilities in place while 11.1% had simple effluent treatment systems and 81.1% did not treat their effluent at all. While 66.6% of factories discharge their effluents into water bodies (rivers/streams), 33.4% send theirs to nearby waste/farmlands. However, recent investigation has shown that the number of the functional factories have reduced tremendously though some new ones have emerged, the overall pollution situation by the rubber industry is still bad. To improve the pollution levels caused by these processing factories, some efficient treatment systems in form of physical, chemical and biological processes can be used to reduce the pollution load of the effluent to tolerable limits.